[Nettime-bold] ... strikes back

["Ivo Skoric" <ivo@reporters.net>]

This summer I wrote two complaints to the Civilian Complaint Review 
Board (the one that investigates police misconduct) in New York city. 
One of those was a simple Freedom Of Information Act request. I 
wondered aloud what was going on.  In 11 years living in New York city I 
never got a speeding ticket. And that’s not because I was a defensive 
driver. This summer I got two, plus one for unsafe lane changes, 
something that I learned from New York cab and limo drivers. Why all 
that sudden heightened police activity? And when, for chrissake, the 
speed limit on FDR drive was lowered to 40? And on whose orders? I am 
still waiting for the answer. Although, the events on September 11 made 
it unnecessary. All right, they knew something is going to happen. They, 
obviously, did not know what exactly. But, publicly, they said nada, 
nothing, zilch.

The same like Anne Thompson, who, reporting yesterday for MSNBC 
from Times Square, New York, did not say anything about the peace 
protest that was held there just a couple of hours earlier. Instead we saw 
fast food restaurant patrons and high school soccer team cheerleaders 
from Anytown, US, demanding US military to kick Afghani asses. Yes, 
she mentioned that lone voice of protest from a small group of people in 
Los Angeles. 12,000 New Yorkers and 2 Nobel Peace prize winners on 
Times Square were not fit to show on mainstream TV networks in the US. 
They all, shamefully, did not say a word about it 
(ABC,CBS,NBC,CNN,FOX,...). What, is that why they have Slobodan 
Milosevic in The Hague? To serve as an editorial policy consultant for 
major US electronic media?

This was a mistake. What would be a better proof of democracy in the 
US but showing how New Yorkers, after what have happened to them 
just a month earlier, can not only tolerate but even join a march with 
people who shout “Free Palestine!” and exclaim how ‘the ONLY way to 
stop terrorism is to stop American imperialism?!’ “They say war, we say 
no, Bush's war got to go.” That much freedom of speech the US can 
afford only at home - in Pakistan, for example, the opposition leaders 
were arrested before the bombs started falling on Afghanistan. 
Democracy IS about allowing different, unpopular, opinions to be heard. 
Why do largest media in the free world consistently try to convince us 
otherwise - airing all those “random” street opinions that are crying for 
the rule of the iron fist?

Meanwhile, the US hit targets in Afghanistan with 50 cruise missiles and 
an undisclosed amount of other ordinance and apparently killed no one. 
The miraculous American war with no casualties is back. The Taliban 
reported some dead, but that could not be independently confirmed. And 
the weather was bad, so the satellites could not see what was exactly hit. 
Given that Afghanistan is indeed full of vast uninhabited spaces that 
could be used as firing ranges, it would be quite possible to drop a 
nuclear bomb there and cause no casualties, as well. Maybe, that would 
give people of Vieques a break. The only casualty so far it seems to be 
general Myers. What the hell happened to him? I saw him limping on 
crutches behind Rumsfeld yesterday. Did Al Qaeda, perhaps, 
strategically placed a banana peel inside Pentagon for him to slip over it?

Official story is that attack was necessary to disable Taliban’s air 
defenses, so that the air drops of food and supplies could be dropped to 
the poor, starving Afghans. Given their propensity for destruction, the 
conventional wisdom that they would shoot down the aid delivery 
planes for sure. This strategy was tried in Bosnia. More people died 
crushed by the dropped food supplies or fighting around them after they 
landed, then from the NATO military attacks on Serb air-defenses. While 
cruise missiles are not the best choice of weapon in terms of public 
relations - because everybody resents Americans and British for that 
weapon that only they possess - they proved to be relatively harmless in 
Serbia, where most of civilian casualties related to use of cluster bombs. 
And I wouldn’t mourn the 36 antiquated military aircraft that Taliban had 
before this attack. That was way to many for a country with 70% illiterate 
population, anyway. 

The bombing came after a month of the offensive of empathy, where the 
US tried everything to show how it is a good citizen of the world and 
more than willing to share its vast wealth with others. So, when the ‘make 
no mistakes’ Bush appeared on TV, looking as if he was about to pose 
for an oil painting by an old renaissance master, proudly announcing 
how ‘on his orders’ military finally stroke, most of the voices of dissent 
were already pre-emptively silenced. Russians, also, would be more quiet 
about casualties in Afghanistan, than they were about casualties in 
Yugoslavia. Their collateral damage record in Afghanistan is better kept 
buried in archives. The bombing also came after a series of dreary 
‘accidents’ that all happened in a conspicuous order one after another - 
Russian airplane full of Israeli passengers ‘shot’ over Black Sea, 
allegedly by the Ukrainian surface-to-air missile, that, apparently, left 
bullet holes in the cockpit; an outbreak of hemorrhagic fever in Afghan 
refugee camps in Pakistan; an ‘isolated’ case (or two) of anthrax in 
Florida; a ‘deranged’ Croatian war veteran who hijacked a Greyhound 
bus in Tennessee (with a box-cutter knife, of all weapons...); an airplane 
that was *not* hijacked in India, but everybody thought it was; an 
American killed by a bomb in Khobar (again), Saudi Arabia; yet another 
‘deranged’ individual who shot a single hole in the Alaskan oil pipeline 
causing the largest oil spill in the history of Alaska (and probably 
polluting more than any controlled exploitation could do) - and 
concluded with Osama Bin Laden delivering a lecture (with his index 
finger raised) through the Bahrain television, in which he warned the 
World to ‘make no mistakes’ that he could strike anywhere at any time 
and in anyway he wanted.

Then the CNN proclaimed that the bombing for that day was officially 
completed. Is that going to enter in rules of the ‘civilized warfare’ of 21st 
century? Have the global TV news network declare when the bombing is 
over - so the people (those who have access to satellite TV) can crawl 
back out of their shelters? Or, is this a propaganda challenge to Al 
Qaeda? Like, ok we both can strike each other at will, anywhere, anytime, 
anyhow - but the next step now is to be as bold as to be able to declare 
when it is over for the day! Now, gentlemen, let’s toast. Tomorrow there 
is another round. There was no toast, though: Emmy Awards ceremony 
was canceled - again - it seems that it always gets scheduled on a wrong 
day. And NY mayor Giuliani, answering the permanent terrorist threat in 
the city, which downtown already looks like a militarized zone, and, also, 
addressing his upcoming need to look for a new job, appears on TV 
dressed in a full police uniform. What is he going to run for a police 
commissioner now that his mayoral term is expiring?

The protest in New York was organized under the banner saying ‘Not in 
our name.’ The only real winner in this war so far, and the only one who 
can say that it is definitely fought “in its name” now is Raytheon, the 
manufacturer of cruise missiles and other US smart ammunition: its stock 
sky-rocketed reaching all-time highs even before yesterday’s strikes in 
anticipation of need for their products after September 11 events. In 21st 
century bombs, that don’t kill people sell even better than those that do. 
They are more socially acceptable. They are more economical, too. 
Because repeated application is necessary. And with the military 
operation named like “Operation Enduring Freedom” suggesting a) that 
operation will have a long duration and b) that the operatives will have 
the freedom to do whatever they want, the Raytheon is looking on a 
really good year for business right now. That makes me think that 
Raytheon should keep people like Osama on retainer. I wonder if he had 
some stock options with them. 

On his part, obviously, he is looking for a diversion. The Northern 
Alliance is already in Panjshir valley - that’s just a ‘short walk’ in the 
Hindu-Kush away from Al Qaeda’s headquarters probable location in 
15+ thousands feet high Kafir mountains of Nuristan. It’s time to shift 
the focus. So, after nearly a month (which was good news for Israel 
where the frequency of suicide attacks is usually bigger), and well timed 
with finally subdued Ariel Sharon, who was just ready to grovel a little, 
another suicide bomber exploded himself in Israel yesterday.

Q.

ps - I can send pictures from NY anti-war rally to interested people

  

_______________________________________________
Nettime-bold mailing list
Nettime-bold@nettime.org
http://amsterdam.nettime.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/nettime-bold